EXPECTING GUNFIRE

Press, Volume CIX, Issue 31941, 19 March 1969, Page 13

EXPECTING GUNFIRE

<X-Z. Press Association—Copyright)

LONDON, March 18.

Professor Leopold Kohr, economic adviser to the breakaway island of Anguilla, said last night that if British paratroops landed on the island they would be met by gunfire.

The professor, speaking from Cardiff, Wales, on the British Broadcasting Corporation television news programme “24 Hours," added: “If paratroops land on the island I fear it will be another Biafra.”

Also shown was a party of Anguillans living in London who said they would return to fight if the situation arose. On “24 Hours” last night, a Canadian Broadcasting Corporation film recently made in Anguilla was shown. In it Mr Ronald Webster told an interviewer, Gordon Donaldson: “I am fully prepared for an attack, from St Kitts particularly. We have got powerful friends who will help us in case of an invasion.

“In 20 minutes we will get all the help we need,” he added. Mr Webster declined to say where the help would come from. There was also a filmed interview with Canon C. R. G. Carleton, the rector of Anguilla. He said: “If any invasion (from St Kitts) was attempted we would be able to cope with it. There is a considerable amount of arms on the island.”

As an example he mentioned several iron cannons which were used in the Napoleonic wars.

Canon Carleton said: “We I tried them out, filling them with bits of metal and using dynamite as a charge and it blew the gun to pieces.” He said the guns had worked better with a small charger. In a story from London, John Lee, of the New York Times News Service, said that although the affair had been regarded by many as a comic opera, the. incident raised serious problems for Britain.

If Britain forced Anguilla back into the constitutional union, critics could accuse Britain of willingness to use force against black rebels but not against white rebels, such as the Rhodesian regime. If Britain agreed to independence, Government supporters feared the precedent might be cited for Biafra, Lee said.